Life at Sea

So I've been thinking of writing this post for a while, and now that I'm halfway through this 14 day trip across the ocean I figured why not do it now? We also had our Halloween dance tonight and I didn't want to go to bed after it but also didn't want to do homework so might as well right? I don't think a lot of people really understand what life is like for us SASers a many call us (SASshole is also a popular one). I'll answer some common questions, clear up some misconceptions, and give a type of "day in the life". So without further ado, here is life at sea.

Some common questions 
1. What's it like to live on a ship?
It's definitely interesting, honestly I find it pretty similar to being on a campus, we just can't walk as far. There are some differences obviously. We have snack bars and a pool and see our professors walking around in pajamas. It's really cool though because it's a very right knit community, you see people in countries that you don't personally know but you know are on SAS and automatically look out for eachother or say hi. 

2. Do you take classes?
Yes, I'm taking 4 classes. Most students are but some are doing five. There are two class days A and B and 6 class periods a day. Before coming on the ship you make your schedule and register for classes just like any other college. I'm taking international business, international marketing, intercultural communication, and modern evolutionary theory. Most classes are small and in normal classrooms. Some classes have desks, some have tables, some have booths like a dining hall. Every student is required to take a "global lens" course which is a large lecture in the union. A lot of kids skip though. Classes can be really difficult or really easy depending on the class or professor (same as normal college). Mine are a mixture of the two. 

3. What kind of people are on the ship/ how many people are on the ship? 
There are about 600 students on the ship, maybe more maybe less I don't really know. There are also some lifelong learners which are adults who take classes, professors, deans,  crew, and their families. So yes, there are children on the ship. There were some really little kids 2, 4, and 6 but their family was only partial voyagers and left us after morocco. There are probably ten other kids though ranging from probably 5 to 12 with a few older teenagers. As for the students there are A LOT of west coasters and southerners. Aka we are not at Bentley anymore, it's quite the culture shock for us. The kids are super friendly though, lots of really crunchy kids and there are some great artists, musicians, etc that make things really interesting. Also, the majority of people are in Greek life which is really cool. I've met a ton of Alpha Phi girls which has also been really cool. It's definitely a new experience for me and I'm going to miss these people a ton.

4. Do you get homesick?
There's always a little part of me that misses home or thinks "I wish so and so were here for this" or things remind me of people and I miss them but I don't get very homesick. The hardest thing about semester at sea is certain times, especially on these long treks when you're overwhelmed or frustrated or annoyed and you just want to make a phone call and you can't. It's hard to not be able to talk to people or to send an email and only go back and forth once per day or have people not answer at all. Emailing is like our texting, you don't have to put much into an email, it's just nice to hear from different people outside of the ship.

Some misconceptions: 
1. I'll send Tori this funny article online
WE DO NOT HAVE INTERNET, please stop sending me links, I can't open them we get two hours for the semester.
2. I'll tag Tori in 46 awful pictures on Facebook.
I can't even defend myself or untag pics, c'mon guys like I said, no internet. 
3. Semester at Sea is a booze cruise 
I do not drink on the ship, there is sometimes alcohol available, two tiny glasses of wine or two beers at dinner, then on nights they let us go crazy 2 hours after dinner ends we can have 3 more. Did I mention each drink is $4?
4. There must be so many hot guys on the ship 
Good news dad! No worrying about boys, the ship is 70:30 girls to guys. 90% of these males are super artsy or very west coast. Not really my type, they make great friends though. 
5. Being on the ship must be super boring.
While there are some points when it's like "what should we do now..?" There is actually a lot to do on the ship. We have world cafés every night which is usually someone talking about an issue or topic, there are clubs, everyone has movies and we share them with each other, there are also tons of board games. You also can't go wrong sitting by the pool all day, we haven't had much bad weather (knock on wood, rumor has it we're hitting a storm soon) Sometimes the ship even plays movies in the union. We've also had students put on plays, open mic nights, a talent show, each "sea" or your floor/section of your floor has occasional programs, and there are tons of clubs.
6. Not having technology must suck
I must say I miss instagram and texting and I always think of stuff to tweet but it's actually been amazing. At dinner you actually talk to people for hours, and get to know them, and pay attention. When I come home I'll probably be horrible with my phone because I'll still think I can't use it. 

I can't think of anymore off the top of my head right now, but I'll give a little day in the life so you can get a feel for what I do on a daily basis. We don't really do days of the week, like I actually have no clue what today is. We have class every single day at sea with the exception of a couple study days, saved solely for these long stretches. We have 12 days of class and 2 study days on this 14 day stretch. Of course I do different things day to day but this is usually my standard B day. 

The alarm goes off at 7:10, then we snooze it until like 7:35 and finally get up and throw on leggings and a t-shirt. We walk up to the sixth floor over to the garden lounge (the smaller dining room) to our classroom which is a room inside of it. Walking anywhere on the ship takes 5 minutes max. I usually grab a muffin to eat in my international business class which starts at 8. After class I either go to the computer lab on the other end of the ship or go back down to take a nap. You can nap at all times because we have no window so it is always entirely pitch black. Our steward cleans our room on B days so I always come back to a made bed and tidy room. Not cleaning is great. I usually do homework up until lunch which I eat on the fifth floor in the main dining room, at 12, Peggy one of our deans comes on with the afternoon announcements. After lunch i either stay there to work because it's usually quiet or go up to the seventh deck which is the pool deck. On nice days students are laying on chairs all by the pool or on towels around it. There is usually someone playing music, it's not very conducive to work but I love being out there and watching the ocean. Sometimes someone spots a whale or dolphins and everyone sprints to the side of the ship to see. At 3:50 I have my second class of the day, evolution, after almost 6 hours between my first and second classes it's tough to sit through but I haven't skipped any of my 4 classes yet! Class ends when Peggy comes back on with our nighttime announcements, then I head over to the garden lounge for dinner. Our favorite crew member, Darwin, works in the garden lounge and hooks us up all the time, he's the man. We usually sit around in the lounge for a while talking and people will come in and out. Sometimes at night we'll go to a world cafe, or go up to the top deck to watch the sunset, or watch a movie, or just stay and do homework. Snack time is at ten but I don't eat it a lot. I usually go to the gym (if I go which is rare) at about 10:30. There's nobody there at that time, you have to sign up for equipment usually and it's only for a half hour so it sucks which is why I wait. It can be tough to work out when the sea is really rocky sometimes too. Luckily the only food they feed us is pasta, potatoes, and bread. After the gym I'll usually go to fill up my water bottle in the garden lounge, the only spot where you can do it, then shower and go to bed. 

Not a super exciting life but everyone has a routine. We switch it up a little everyday too. When we're in port is when we really have fun. I feel like I covered a lot in this blog. Feel free to comment/email me any other questions you have or stuff you wanna know. I'm still begging for emails on this stretch to entertain me. I hope this all makes sense, fun fact: I don't proofread my blogs. I also can't respond to your comments (see misconceptions above). Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

The Hardest Goodbye

It's been five days now since I left Barcelona and I'm still having a difficult time coming to terms with the fact that 1. I left barca 2. I'm done with Europe 3. I'm stuck on a ship for 14 days (only 10 now) luckily today is a study day so we have no class. It's also beautiful out so I'll be poolside all day... Studying... Obviously.

Leaving Barca was definitely one of the hardest by far, I strongly considered ditching the ship and staying there forever. It was the first place I really could've seen myself studying abroad. I never had any interest in staying in one place to study abroad, too much of a free spirit ya know? But everything about that place was amazing. We got to see a ton of our friends from Bentley which was awesome, especially since we won't see anyone again until December 8th. We stayed with Isabella and Katie and I must say they may have been the greatest hosts so far (sorry everyone, much love to all you guys). Their apartment was right on the beach which was super convenient plus we had awesome weather the whole time. But the way the city is set up and with the metro they could get anywhere pretty quickly. Barcelona is just the perfect mix of history, beach, fun, great weather, and great people. I'm seriously probably never going to get over leaving.

The first day we woke up early to get off the ship and Isabella met us and we walked back to their apartment, it was only a little over a twenty minute walk. After settling in and catching up a bit we walked with them along the beach on the way to their school and they went to class and we explored the boardwalk and stuff. We decided to get the touristy stuff done our first day so we could relax the rest of our time. First we went to Sagrada Familia which is a church in barca, it's a lot different than most churches I've been to abroad because it's a lot more modern, it's actually still under construction and will be for a long time. It was one of the most incredible churches I've ever seen. I couldn't capture how beautiful it was with any camera. The detail inside, the stained glass, everything was just incredible. It's not something I can really explain, it's one of those things you need to see in person. We just sat there staring around the place for like an hour. After that we went to Parc Guell. It's quite a hike to get up to it, there are actually escalators along the street for people to get up. It gave some really amazing views of the entire city though which was cool, it was a little hazy which wasn't ideal but it was still a great view. We obviously went to the bench there to get pics and stuff, that was really cool too. The mosaics at Parc Guell are all so cool. On our way back from Parc Guell to the metro station we stopped in a bunch of the souvenir shops to look for our souvenirs and jerseys for the soccer game. Fun fact about Barcelona: they sell FC Barca jerseys in legitimately every store. This is great for people buying them, I got to haggle the price of mine down, I also got a beach towel which I'll be needing as we go into these more tropical climates (life is hard). After that we went back to the apartment and Katie and Isabella got back from class. For dinner we just got some pizzas from an Italian place on their street. It was no Italy pizza but it was still pretty good. That night we went to a bar called George Payne which is essentially the skell of Barcelona according to our friends, as usual if you don't know what I'm talking about don't worry about it (RIP Skell). It was really cool though I finally got to see a ton of the Bentley people in Barca. There was even a beer pong tournament however I unfortunately didn't get to take part, this may be better for everyone though, I would've hated to embarrass everyone. After that we went to the clubs along the beach, they're all underground so there's just a small entrance above ground. We ending up splitting up and Isabella and I went to one called Opium which also happened to be the choice location of semester at sea for the night. We eventually went back to the apartment which was a super short walk from where we were. 

The next morning we woke up and went right to the beach for a while. In the afternoon we met up with the girls again between their classes and they brought us to this amazing sandwich place right near them. It was called Bode B maybe (sp?) idk but all the bread there was freshly baked and you pick a meat that they cool for you then you just load it with vegetables and stuff. I got chicken with a ton of toppings and their sauces which I don't think anybody actually has any idea what they are but everyone knows they're really good. After lunch we walked with Isabella and Katie to their scho and on the way they showed us this really nice park with a really cool fountain and we saw the arc de triomph (arc number 63? They're everywhere) then we saw their campus and headed back to the apartment. We chilled there for a while and showered and stuff before we headed back to the ship to get dinner and to meet for the soccer game. We met on the top deck of the ship with the other people in our group who were going to the game and they distributed our tickets. Then they herded all 300+ of us out to buses and headed for the stadium. When we got to the stadium it was just masses of people, not surprising since it holds over 100,000 fans but definitely overwhelming nonetheless. Walking into the stadium out to where the seats are was wild, I'd never seen such a huge stadium with so many people. Soccer for these people is right up there with religion. I was in awe. We were up in the nosebleeds but right on the mid line so I was so happy with the seats because I could see the whole game perfectly. Some other SAS kids got tickets right on the field which is sick because they could see Messi and Neymar up close but not the whole game as it played out. It was also really funny at the stadium because they have the opposing team fans in the top corner of the stadium behind plexi glass surrounded by tons of security. Overall it was more quiet than I expected, I think cause everyone was so intent on the game. Whenever they scored though the place absolutely erupted. They ended up winning which was awesome. Afterwards the buses dropped us on La Rambla which is the main street in Barca. They said it was supposed to be crazy but it really wasn't so Syd and I just went back to the apartment. We definitely didn't miss anything besides typical drunk SAS kids. 

The next morning we woke up and went back to the beach. For a while, the weather was just too beautiful not to. In the afternoon we met up with Isabella and she brought us to this really cool food market. They had tons of fresh fruit and vegetables and sold stuff like chocolate, meals for lunch, smoothies, it was great and so cheap. We walked around la Rambla for a while after that. Then we went over to the gothic district which has a lot of really cool architecture and some really nice churches. She also brought us to the greatest gelato place I've been to thus far called mana gelats. I got peanut butter and Ferrero Roche (sp?) then they fill a mini cone with melted chocolate and put it on top. Heaven. It was getting late at this point so we headed back to the apartment. Isabella and I went over to the beach to watch the sunset, very romantic stuff. It was so nice though it was like it surrounded us. It definitely competed with our ship sunsets. For dinner Katie cooked pasta and chicken with some really good sauce, not sure what it was but it was awesome. Plus can't beat a home cooked meal. Then we got ready to go out for our last night in Barcelona/last night out for two weeks. First we went to this sick bar called Dow Jones. It's modeled after the stock market, a Bentley student's dream. All the drink prices are on screens with tickers and it shows the prices and as people buy certain ones the prices change. Then at some point the stock market crashes and everyone rushes to get their drinks. It was so cool I would go there all the time. After that we went to this club called Sutton. They had free wine and champagne until like one so it was pretty cool. It was a pretty late night, just like most of them have been. I'm not quite sure what time we got back but for some reason I had a headache when I woke up. 

The next morning we met Isabella at his great fry place right near them called las fritas. We sat by the water for a while being depressed because it was getting to be time to leave. Then we went to the apartment to pack and say goodbye. On our way back to the ship we stopped in a few souvenir shops to delay the inevitable. 

By late afternoon we were in line to get back on the MV and I had to say possibly the hardest goodbye yet to Barcelona. It definitely won my heart. As I got back on the ship I kissed the ground, my last European stop and last time on solid, non-rocking ground for a while. 

Bye land

So I'm about to leave Barcelona and be on the ship for 14 straight days.

Please send me emails, I'll be it off from the world for two weeks. SERIOUSLY PLEASE EMAIL ME.

You can choose from any of my email addresses:
Victoria.hancock.fa14@semesteratsea.org
Hancock_vict@bentley.edu
Torihancock24@gmail.com
Torihancock@yahoo.com

The choice is yours, just please do it. After 4 days I'll probably already be losing it

Pasta

Today's a tough day for us ship kids, we have one day of classes before getting off the ship for four days in Barcelona. As I write this, I'm sitting on the top deck of the ship it's probably about 80 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Yesterday we got back from four amazing days in Italy, this one was the hardest to leave so far. I need about a month in Italy to see everything I want to see

Day one I didn't get to go travel by myself because I had a field lab for my international business class. Our field lab was supposed to be in Ghana making chocolate. Instead we went to a solar plant.. Not quite as exciting. We got a tour of the plant for about two hours. There was a cat there so I didn't completely hate it, I really miss my pets. After the tour we went to a farm/b&b in a really small town for lunch. The place was awesome, we had bruschetta, cheese, and eggplant for starters then they brought out this awesome homemade pasta. The best part was that they just kept bringing out more. After we ate we walked around a bit outside enjoying the views. They had dogs there too so I was playing with them. Italy really started off on my good side with all the pets. When we finished lunch we drove back to the port in Civitavecchia where the port agents talked to us about running a port. After that we went to the ship and Sydney and I headed to the train station to get a train to Rome

It was really easy to catch a train and we made it to Rome by about seven then took a cab to the apartment we were staying at in the trastavere district. We met our other friends there who had spent the day in Rome. We went to dinner when we got there, there are a good number of Bentley girls studying in Rome and living right near our apartment so one of them showed us this takeaway pizza place that was so good. I got spinach and mushroom pizza and zucchini and prosciutto pizza. That night they brought us to a club. It was really fun, there ended up being a bunch of SAS students there, it's always really interesting to go places and end up with a bunch of people you know in a foreign country, it makes it seem a lot less foreign. 

The next morning we woke up and set out to do some sightseeing around Rome. It's such a massive city, in total I definitely walked well over 30 miles in my time there. Out apartment was like a 15 minute walk from the Vatican but we were saving that until the next day. We saw the 
Castel Sant'Angelo, the Trevi Fountain which actually does not currently exist because it's fully under construction so it's empty, we did get to walk over the fountain so I was kind of inside of the fountain, we went to the Pantheon, piazza Navona, some shops. We also got lunch at a little Italian restaurant, I got lasagna. It was so good, all their pasta was homemade. A little while after lunch we met up with Kendal and Brooke who took the train from Florence at the Spanish steps. When we met up with them we got gelato then went to the Colosseum but we didn't go inside. By this time it was getting late so we headed back to meet up with our friends for dinner. We were supposed to go to a really great pizza place but we went to a different restaurant instead. It wasn't too bad but it was definitely pretty overpriced. After dinner we got our stuff and went to a different apartment where Sydney and I were staying with Brooke and Kendal. It was a more low-key night than before we ended up just going to a couple bars and walking the streets. 

In the morning Kendal left to meet up with her parents who had just flown in to visit so Sydney, Brooke, and I met our friend at the first apartment where we were staying that night. We went to visit the Vatican in the morning, because of how packed it was we didn't go to St. Peter's but we did do the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. There's so much to see there, I hadn't expected to stay as long as we did. The only shitty part was that it was so packed but overall I really loved it. After that we went to our apartment to change into shorts because it was HOT out and obviously we weren't going to wear that to the Vatican. Then we went to a little restaurant near us for lunch where I had ravioli. Then we walked around some more, we went to this island kind of thing on the Tiber where I got this really pretty watercolor painting from a guy painting them on the street. That night we met up with Kendal and her parents for dinner. It's always really nice to see parents, unfortunately that'll be the last time until I get home and have to see my own again. The dinner was really good we got different appetizers and I got ravioli again (it was different than the first one). It was a great dinner overall huge shout out to the Pratt fam, you guys are the best! When we got back to the apartment our other friends were also back from dinner, the rest of the Bentley girls came over before we went out. About half of them went to a club and half of us went to a wine bar. I didn't want to do the hour long walk so I went to the bar. It was a nice place, we went to a few different bars in the area before heading back home. 

The next morning was a tough one for me, we had to be up pretty early to check out of the apartment so I didn't quite get as much sleep as I might've wanted to to sober up a bit more. We also had to carry all of our stuff around for the day which was a struggle. We had some time to kill before catching our train so we went to the colosseum again to take some pics. Then we went back to Trastavere to find a place to eat lunch. I got an awesome pizza with sausage and mushroom, it was pretty depressing to know it was my last Italian meal. After lunch we went to the train station and headed back to Civitavecchia. We got there at around 4 so we just went right back to the ship since all of us were absolutely exhausted from the four days. 

Everyone always asks which place is our favorite and there's no way I can ever answer that question, everywhere we go is so different and every place has such distinctive features that make me love it. When we were at dinner Mrs. Pratt asked which place would we go back to which is such a better question. I 100% will be going back to Italy to visit all the different places I didn't have time to go this time around. It was such a beautiful place with the most amazing food I've ever eaten and so much history. I'm definitely a little depressed to be gone. 

Ridin' Dirty

So I'm currently sitting on the train traveling from our port in Civitavecchia to Rome where I'll be until Saturday I think (not totally sure what today is) so I figured what better to do than blog about my time in Morocco 

Morocco was our first port out of Europe so it was instantly quite the culture shock. The security level on the ship was higher so each student, staff, and crew member had to go to the union to get their passport face to face with customs workers from Morocco. Definitely different than the usual. After getting our passports we met on the 7th deck because I had signed up for a 4 day camel trek through SAS. There were a total of ninety of us on the ship and two professors as "chaperones". 

They happened to also be my ship "parents" not sure if I've mentioned these before. At the beginning of the voyage you can sign up for a family and they pair you with a "parent" who is a professor or some other adult on the ship and you have about 5 or 6 "siblings" and you occasionally meet for dinners or game nights. My "dad" is a professor and his wife is also one on the ship so they combined our families.

Anyways we got onto our buses to set out for our Moroccan adventures. The first day we drove about 3 hours from Casablanca to Marrakech then stopped for lunch. It was definitely a very touristy place there were drummers and belly dancers and we all sat at huge round tables. There were a bunch of other Bentley girls on the trip who we sat with, we also say with some new girls I'd never met. The food was pretty good a "salad" which consists of small plates of different foods like cucumbers, eggplants, rice, etc. then we had chicken tajim (sp?) it's pretty much chicken on the bone with spices with a little sauce and vegetables all in this dish with a cone cover. All of the meals in morocco are shared around the table rather than individual plates for everyone. Dessert was fruits, I generally avoided the fruit we were given after hearing warnings about the Moroccan water and people getting sick from it. 

After lunch it was back on the buses for another few hours. At this point we were driving through the Atlas Mountains which was both horrifying and incredible. For hours we were driving (slightly recklessly) along the edge of a massive mountain the sights were incredible, the mountains went on for miles and there were all these tiny Berber villages scattered inside of them. We made a pitstop after some time at a little place on the side of the mountain. There, we went into a small shop that made Moroccan oil which was really cool, one of my friends even got to help make it. 

We eventually got to our hotel in Ouzarate (sp?) at like 8 for a total of ten hours on the bus the first day. They brought us out to a dinner restaurant that was again very showy. This time we got soup, more chicken tajim, and this dish that was like a giant pastry like fried dough covered in cinnamon but that was filled with shredded seasoned chicken. It wasn't necessarily bad, just definitely not what I'm used to at all. The whole time performers were playing drums and women were dancing. They even pulled some other students out to join in, some of the guys were putting their robes on the guy students. After dinner was over we went back to our hotel and passed out, luckily for Sydney and I our room was not infested with bugs like most people's. I guess that's morocco for you.

Next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel. This consisted of mostly bread things and jelly and honey, not bad but I could go for some eggs that are actually made from eggs as opposed to the shit they serve on the ship. Next was time to get back on the bus for another 3 hours when we got to our next food stop. If this sounds like I basically rode hours on a bus to go eat meals around morocco I agree, it got old pretty quickly. This lunch was underneath tents outside around a pool. We had another salad thing, more chicken tajim (I think that's all they eat), and more fruit for dessert. The place also had a shop so we could pick up stuff to wear for our camel trek. I got a turban and a pair of harem pants which are the most comfortable things of all time. Some kids went all out and bought robes and shit but I wasn't into that. 

Our next bus ride was to the place we got on our camels, it was pretty short, only about 2 or 3 hours. We got to the place and there were a bunch of Moroccan guys who would lead us on our camels, usually groups of 3 or 4. We got up on them and took off at a leisurely pace to our nomad camp in the Sahara Desert where we would be sleeping. It was about an hour and a half. I know that riding a camel sounds super cool and don't get me wrong, it totally is, but it is also so damn painful, I'm actually still a little sore. We got to our nomad camp which was surrounded by big sand hills. It had a huge circle of fairly nice tents with rugs under them and a huge one with tables to eat inside . There was also a bathroom with a couple actual toilets and a sink which I was surprised about. The guys got to sleep inside the nice tents where the beds had bedding and bed frames. The girls were all put in small white tents set up in a circle on the outskirts of the camp, our "mattresses" were more like rocks with a thin sheet. I didn't mind it too much since it made me feel more like I was roughing it in a nomad camp. We arrived there just before sunset so we all hiked up a huge sand dune to watch it. It was cloudy so we didn't get a great view but being up there was amazing. You could see out for miles and the sand was the softest thing I've ever felt. There were actually more plants there than I'd expected, I thought I'd be seeing desolate land but there were a decent amount of little plants scattered around. Luckily no snakes or scorpions that I saw (some kids saw baby scorpions). After the sun set we went down to have dinner it was more soup, chicken tajim, and fruit. That night we sat around a big fire they made as the nomads played drums and sang. As time went on some SAS kids were playing with the drums and teaching the nomads some American songs, they really liked it it was a pretty fun night overall. I went back up the dune and sat talking to some kids for a while, unfortunately we couldn't see the stars very well because of the clouds but it was still really cool.

The next morning we woke up at like 6 to watch the sunrise. There was another large dune on the opposite side of the camp that all of us sat on to watch it. Like before, it was still pretty cloudy but what we could see was really pretty. We then had breakfast which was mostly just bread like before, the flies were so bad though so I didn't really eat too much. After eating it was back on the camels to ride to the bus. It was a pretty quiet ride, mostly because people were so sore from riding and exhausted from the trip so far. We spent most of the day driving back through the Atlas Mountains again. There was a point where we were stopped for a half hour because school students were striking in the middle of the road. We found out it was because they have to walk an outrageous distance to school with no access to a bus. They ended up calling the authorities and police and the mayor (or whatever they call it) of the city came and paid each student 600 dirham which is equal to about 50 or so bucks at home... I need to start protesting. After that we ended up going to lunch. We actually didn't have chicken tajim this time we got skewers of chicken and beef which were pretty good. They also brought out French fries which was amazing especially after all the traditional Moroccan food we'd been having. We got back on the bus after eating and got to Marrakech pretty late where we'd be staying the night. Before we got to our hotel we went to dinner. It was another traditional place, more salad more chicken tajim. There wasn't much that was super exciting about it, it was really pretty and they only had a man playing guitar, no performers in our faces which was a good change. After dinner we went to our hotel, it was much nicer than our other one which was good. Some kids went out but I was too tired to function plus I didn't feel great from the food, we just stayed in and watched some Arab Idol which, fun fact, is sponsored by KFC and Oreos. 

The next morning we got to go to the huge market to shop before going back to Casablanca. It was so cool I probably could've spent like 4 weeks there without getting bored. There's probably thousands of stands and mini stores selling all different kinds of stuff. There's scarves, pants, jewelry, artwork, spices, bags, I could go on forever. A lot of it is actually all the same stuff. The best part about it is that you gaggle a price, it's actually considered rude to take the first price they give you because it's basically you saying you're too good for them. As you're walking by the shopkeepers are trying anything to get you into their store, they say everything is "special student price" or "special only for you." A lot of the blonde girls (since they're so rare around there) got some interesting stuff to, one of my friends was asked how many camels she would sell our blonde friend for. Another guy offered everything in his store for free if one of my friends would go have tea at his house for one hour. The best deal I was able to negotiate was two scarves that should've been  550 dirhams for 250. I wish shopping was always like that. After we spent a few hours exploring the market we headed out of Marrakech to get back to the ship. It was really great to finally be home after that exhausting trip. 

Morocco was such a culture shock for all of us. It was so cool though, it made me sad that we aren't going to Senegal or Ghana anymore. I think of totally go back, especially to Marrakech. It did make me never want to see another bus or piece of chicken again in my life though. 

From the time I started writing this to right now I've experienced the greatness Italy has to offer, I'll try to get that blog up tomorrow because we will be in Barcelona on Monday. 

Missing you all at home, Thursday was our halfway point of the voyage which was really depressing, I'm not sure I ever want to leave.
 

No Habla

Okay sorry for the delay everyone, my laptop is officially broken so schoolwork takes much longer now that I have to carve my notes into stone without access to modern technology. It's also midterm week here so I've been studying. I'm about finished so here is Madrid for you.

At 11 in the morning on day 2 of the port Sydney and I had a flight to Madrid. We had booked it over the summer to visit our friends from back home who were studying there. We stayed at our friend Devin's apartment who was one of our roommates last year, Emma, another one of our roommates came from Seville to stay for the weekend too. By chance, Devin lives a couple streets over from Casey which was awesome. There were also a few of our other friends from home that we got to hang out with while we were there. 

When we landed at the airport we were greeted by Devin and took the metro back to her apartment. We then went out to the shopping area around her apartment, it was nice to be in a place where I wasn't worried about visiting 40 different landmarks and trying to figure out public transportation and needing to figure out where I was living. While I have a great grasp of Spanish through my 6 years studying Latin it was still difficult to understand many of the locals.  For the day we just walked around catching up on life and stuff, it was nice to get to see them again.
That night we met up with three more of our friends from school, Bayley, Chrissy, and Kelley at this little restaurant near them. We got pitchers of margaritas and chips and guac. It wasn't dinner though because they eat outrageously late in Spain. For actual dinner we went to Bayley and Kelley's apartment and had.. Wait for it... A HOME COOKED MEAL. It was amazing, i hadn't realized how much I'd missed home cooked food before that, it was incredible. So many props to Bayley for cooking it. It was so nice to get to just relax and catch up with everything late into the night. We headed home around 1.

The next day we woke up fairly early to go to the train station to go to Toledo. Before that we went to a Dunks, that's number two of the trip and never fails to be amazing, I can't wait to always have it available when we're back. The trip to Toledo is about a half hour by train. I didn't know what to expect there because I'd never heard of it. It was a beautiful old fashioned medieval like town build on huge hills. We spent the whole day walking around looking at the shops and sights. We also got some traditional Spanish food which was real good and real filling. We got back around 7 and showered and stuff then met with Casey to go to dinner. We went to another place near their apartment where you could get a pitcher of sangria and 4 tapas for really cheap. After we left we went back to devin's to get ready to go out. We went to this place called Kapital which is one of the best clubs in Madrid. It was more expensive to get into than most places I've gone but so worth it. It was by far the coolest place I've been abroad and maybe the coolest place I've ever been to. Imagine 6 floors of Groove Boston times 10, if you don't know what that means you might not want to. Basically a really large party. Spanish people stay out super late we probably got home at around 4:30 or 5 and the club was still full. 

The next morning we went to a place to get breakfast then to Devin's favorite park, it was a huge beautiful park and it smelled like fall but was also really hot out so I was in Heaven. We went out on this little pond in the middle of the park and rowed around on a boat for a bit, since I haven't seen nearly enough water on the trip thus far. After spending a while there we went back to Devin's.

After that we went to a tattoo ship because surprise if you didn't already know I got a tattoo. Sydney did too. The first place we went the guy was really expensive and a douchebag so we left since we figured, well maybe I want to feel comfortable with the man who is going to permanently put something on my body, but that might also just be me idk. We then went to another place where the guy spoke great English and was so sweet and patient with us. I'd known for a whole what I wanted but didn't have a precise design and the thing he designed for me was amazing, I couldn't have ever explained it as perfectly as he drew it. So luckily for me, I don't have some ugly, weird, or misspelled thing on me forever. I even think he used a clean needle! 

That night we went to a bar near where they live for a more low key night, much needed after our crazy night the night before. It was an Irish pub and they were playing college football, yes actual football not futbol. We didn't stay there for very long. 

The next morning we had to be up super early to catch our bus to Cadiz to get back on the ship. Nothing like a 8 and a half hour bus ride! When we got back we dropped off our stuff on the ship and went to a cafe nearby to get a little wifi to try to get some homework done. Yes, real schoolwork because some professors decide to give projects that require internet access even though we don't have internet access on the ship. I'm not bitter........

It was nice to get back on the ship but Madrid and Portugal were so fun so it was definitely bittersweet.

Next stop Morocco (it actually already happened) I might get around to writing it tonight or tomorrow idk we'll be in Italy on Wednesday. I'm currently focused on taking a nice little nap on the 7th deck because it's about 75 and sunny here.

Technical difficulties

Sorry if you've been waiting on my post for Spain, you'll have to wait a little.. Or a lot longer 

I had a fun little mishap yesterday with my laptop where my water bottle spilled on it. According to the ship's IT it might get fixed but I don't think chances are very high. If that's the case I'll either get to buy a new laptop in Italy or just stop doing my schoolwork completely.

At this point I'm thinking I'll do the latter since the former is not a very economical option 

stay tuned

Hang Ten

So we get off the ship tomorrow for Morocco and I was just like "Oh shit I haven't blogged yet about Portugal or Spain" So here's Portugal for ya.

I'll start with the day before we actually got to Portugal just so I can brag about how great my life currently is. Sorry. I got out of my Marketing class at 2 in the afternoon and was done for the day and it looked nice out so I decided to throw on a bathing suit and a tank  top and go up to the top deck where there's our little baby pool and a ton of lounge chairs. It was packed with everyone who was done with or in between classes. Everyone was laying around in bathing suits blasting music. It was so nice to lay in the sun and finally get a little tan, I'm still pretty pale though but we're working on it. It's going to stay fairly nice weather for the rest of my trip so I'm going to try to show up to class but can't make any promises. Am I studying abroad or on a vacation? I don't know anymore.
 
I guess technically Portugal is the homeland, I think I'm like 12.5% Portuguese although I really have no idea what I am I can never get a straight answer out of my parents (is there something you guys need to tell me??) The place we ported was absolutely beautiful, we could see all of the beautiful buildings, it looked just like I pictured it to look like. It was nice to have a different view than what we'd seen throughout the other ports in Europe which had all looked more or less the same. 

The day we got there I had signed up for a surf and yoga lesson. As you all know very well, I'm extremely dainty and coordinated so this was the best program for me to do for sure. The weather was so nice and warm, according to some of the locals it was actually a lot warmer than usual. 

The beach was so nice, definitely a lot nicer than what we have on the Cape, The sand was so soft and the water was pretty warm too, not tropical but definitely warmer than I'm used to. There were a bunch of students that did the trip so we split up into two groups, one doing yoga first and one doing surf, I did surfing. We put our wet suits on and they gave us our boards and we did some warm ups and practiced the technique to get up on the board. The waves weren't extremely large thankfully otherwise I probably would have severely injured myself. It was really hard to stand up on the board, most of the times I would get halfway up, then fall. I managed to fully stand up on the last wave. I didn't really take into account my bad shoulder so it was really difficult to lift myself up to stand. 

After the lesson I was exhausted and it was really starting to get hot out so I'm definitely glad that I surfed first. I figured it would be really nice to relax and do yoga but that wasn't exactly the case. Sand is really hard to balance on in the first place. Then take away one of my legs or make me do weird positions and I was done for. So I'm definitely not a yoga master like I had expected, weird because I can almost touch my toes. It was still fun though. 

Once we finished our lesson we had a couple hours on the beach to lay around or do whatever. I just layed out for the rest of the time since I had only been to the beach one time in the summer and I was going through withdrawals. 

We headed back to the ship afterwards and we decided to just eat dinner on the ship. Our friends booked a hostel and had two extra rooms for that night so we decided to stay there since it was right in the center of Lisbon and only 13 euros a night. It ended up being the nicest hostel we've stayed at by far. There was a girl around our age that worked there and she showed us everywhere to go and eat in the city and they were so nice and helpful, so much different than all the other places we've stayed. Plus it was super clean. If that wasn't enough they had bottomless sangria for 5 euros...amazing. 

In Portugal people don't go out to nightclubs until like 1 or 2 at night which is slightly outrageous. We met up with some of our friends at a bar in the center at around 12:30 and hung around there for a while. Then we went to a nightclub that was actually right next to the ship which was convenient. It was really cool, it was right on a beach and there were blacklights and they painted everyone's faces with neon paint. We stayed there pretty late until one of my friends suddenly came down with a stomach bug or something because she was throwing up, Don't worry I didn't catch whatever she had and we made it home alive.. 

We had a flight in the morning to Madrid so by the time we got back to the hostel it was really late and we went right to sleep.